Among languages currently used across the world, some are written from left to right and some are written from right to left. For example, character strings are written and read from left to right in the Japanese language when written horizontally and in Western languages including English. On the other hand, character strings are written and read from right to left in Hebrew, Arabic, and the like.
Printing devices use different systems and formats depending on the above difference in the direction of writing character strings. Therefore, many printing devices are generally specialized either for languages written from left to right or for languages written from right to left. On the other hand, printing devices capable of dealing with multiple languages different in the direction of writing character strings have been developed.
As an printing device capable of dealing with multiple languages different in the direction of writing character strings, for example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Kokai Publication No. 2012-116109 discloses a printing device printing character strings of multiple languages different in the direction of writing character strings at a time to make prints. More specifically, the printing device disclosed in the above literature scroll-displays character information in a given direction according to the reading direction of the language.
For printing a character string on a recording medium such as a label and tape, a printing device prints the character string on the recording medium in left alignment, namely at a position with reference to the left end of the recording medium in one way and prints the character string on the recording medium in right alignment, namely at a position with reference to the right end of the recording medium in the other way. For example, for printing a character string of a language written horizontally from left to right such as Japanese and English, the first character is positioned on the left and therefore the character string is printed in left alignment in many cases. On the other hand, for printing a character string of a language written horizontally from right to left such as Hebrew and Arabic, the first character is positioned on the right and therefore the character string is printed in right alignment in many cases. Thus, many printing devices for the languages like Japanese and English comprise a printing mechanism specialized for the left-to-right horizontal writing system and many printing devices for the languages like Hebrew and Arabic comprise a printing mechanism specialized for the right-to-left horizontal writing system. In this specification, a printing mechanism specialized for the left-to-right horizontal writing system means a printing mechanism printing character strings in the manner that you see the top-to-bottom direction of characters printed on a recording medium run from left to right under the default print settings provided that the recording medium is placed with the leading end in the transfer direction facing toward you and the printing surface facing upward. On the other hand, a printing mechanism specialized for the right-to-left horizontal writing system means a printing mechanism printing character strings in the manner that you see the top-to-bottom direction of characters printed on a recording medium run from right to left under the default print settings provided that the recording medium is placed with the leading end in the transfer direction facing toward you and the printing surface facing upward. Both with a left-to-right horizontal writing printing mechanism and with a right-to-left horizontal wiring printing mechanism, the first character to print is printed closer to the leading end in the transfer direction of the recording medium under ordinary print settings providing no margin before the printed characters. However, a large difference between a left-to-right horizontal writing printing mechanism and a right-to-left horizontal writing printing mechanism is that the characters printed under such default print settings result in print in left alignment with a left-to-right horizontal writing printing mechanism and result in print in right alignment with a right-to-left horizontal writing printing mechanism.
On the other hand, in some cases, a character string may be printed in right alignment with a left-to-right horizontal writing printing mechanism or printed in left alignment with a right-to-left horizontal writing printing mechanism. In other words, with each printing mechanism, a character string may be printed closer to the opposite end to the reference end under the default print settings (the right end of a recording medium in the case of a left-to-right horizontal writing printing mechanism and the left end of a recording medium in the case of a right-to-left horizontal writing printing mechanism). In such a case, the character string has to be positioned closer to the tail end in the transfer direction of the recording medium. Therefore, traditionally, it is necessary to pre-calculate the length of a printed character string and the difference between the length of a label to create or the like and the length of the character string based on print settings and advance the unprinted recording medium by the length of a preceding margin based on the difference immediately before the printing. As just described, the print start position (the margin from the leading end) has to be adjusted with reference to the leading end of the recording medium, whereby the processing becomes complex and it is difficult to obtain a print result in which the character string is properly positioned. Consequently, it was difficult to realize proper printing in left alignment and printing in right alignment with a single platform.